Woah, Time Flies By Fast!

I promised a post on Herschel and by golly, that’s what you’re going to get!

Herschel is a school in Cape Town (No way!), it is and all girls school with a uniform which looks something like this: >>>

Your hair needs to be tied up, you’re not allowed to wear any jewelry except a watch and studs, and make-up is completely unacceptable.“ That sounds like such a nightmare.”Some people may think, but it actually isn’t. It means you can stay in bed for a bit longer in mornings, and you don’t have to be fussed about your appearance.

And talk about staying in bed; since school starts at around 7.30, you can almost guarantee that the majority of Herschel girls will be at school just after 7.00, 7 o’clock, 0700! An unimaginable time in the life of Dutch students!  Some people are at school even earlier if they have something ridiculous like basketball or waterpolo practice at 6 in the morning o.0

All the students start off their day with a tutor class, where their tutor teacher just tells them what’s going on and when they have to be somewhere. Then you spend the rest of your morning walking from class to class, possibly getting lost, and looking forward to the breaks. I have tried to pick all of the fun subjects, such as; Drama, Art, Science, Math, English and Consumer Studies.

Consumer Studies is a subject I recommend all schools should have! Why? Because during practical’s we bake pies and yummy goodies! This is a lemon meringue pie I baked with Annick Teepe last week:

The theory lessons are not so nice though. As some people might know, the food I despise the most is egg. Even the word sounds horrible. I can’t stand the taste, the smell, anything!  And guess what we’ve been talking about during everything single theory lesson so far… Eggs. The enthusiasm in my voice is probably unbearable for you right now, but there is nothing more I can do except for to suck it up and cross my fingers we start talking about butter soon.

English is probably one of my favourite subjects (Is it possible that I can hear my Dutch English teachers heart fluttering?). The topic we’re on now is Macbeth, Shakespeare, as some of you very well know. During every class I seem to be repeating the same quote over and over again in my head (One Annick, Charlie L. and Jessy v.E had practically imprinted into my brain for the Shakespeare Shorts):

Double double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn  and cauldron bubble!

To finish off, here’s a picture of a cupcake the school baked for the students (Mwahaha free cupcakes!) :

I Survived the First Week

BOO! Didn’t expect that did you? After me being away for so long. You’re probably wondering why I haven’t written about my amazing week, but don’t worry, “Working WiFi” is here to save the day! The internet has been very dodgy lately, so as true adventurer; I seized the moment. Don’t worry, it’s not that South Africa is technically underdeveloped, it’s my exchange host, Dani’s house that is underdeveloped.

Moaning about the WiFi, is not exactly what you want to hear, is it? If you must know, life here is incredible, you have no idea how much we’ve already done during the past week. Sleeping is starting to turn into privilege.

I was welcomed warmly by my host family and immediately felt at home in their house. I’ll give you a quick summary of what we’ve done so far:

Tuesday was our first “real day” here in Cape Town and our hosts decided to show all the exchanges the Waterfront.  This is a harbour turned tourist attraction. This is where we saw our first shark and South African penguin at its aquarium. We later rediscovered our youth at a place called the ‘Scratch Patch’, where you fill a bag with all the pretty stones you’ve found. Highly recommended for those fifteen to sixteen year olds looking to bring back their inner toddler self.

Wednesday was our first day at school and talk about information overload! So. Many. Names. One week later and I’m still having trouble trying to remember half of them. It especially gets really awkward when you add them on Facebook after meeting them, then you meet them the next day again and they all expect you to still remember their names... My brain does not work that way.  A group of us spent some time after school at a mall around the corner called Cavendish. This is where I tried my first ‘Chocolate Frio’, it is the item to be seen with in your hand. It’s basically just blended ice + Lindt chocolate + Milk, but it is delicious. Afterwards we hung out with a couple of new friends in order to get to know each other better.

After school on Thursday we visited Groot Constantia, one of the six must-see places in Cape Town (The Waterfront was one of them too by the way). GC was and still is a wine vineyard with a big history in slavery.  This was followed by dinner at a typical South African fast food restaurant called ‘Spur”.

On Friday Dani took me to a shopping mall called ‘Blue Route’.  Some must-see shops would have to be: Cotton On, Lovita, Jay-Jays, Typo, YDE and oh so many more. The day was ended with a little pizza  get together at Emma’s (Another SA host) house with all the exchanges  from Chilli, Colombia, Holland and their hosts.

The past weekend was insanely busy! Hard to imagine, right?  We took the Hop-on-Hop-off bus around Cape Town on Saturday and during this we visited an African  market area and took a trip with a cable-car up Table mountain. AMAZING VIEW. The sparking blue sea, the bunched up houses and the green edges of the mountains in the distance was truly breathtaking. A load of photos were taken of course. After the bus, Dani’s parents took us to a restaurant on Hout Bay, where I tried my first horribly slimy oyster, never again.

I see this post is starting to get ridiculously long, but just bare with me, we’re almost done... Why don’t we take a five minute break and regroup ASAP.

we back? Good.  I’ll try to shorten the rest so you can all go back to your... uhm... *Insert interesting hobby/pastime here*.

Sunday was supposed to be spent flying over Cape Town in a four-seated plane. Sadly, the clouds were not being sympathetic to us exchange students. So surprisingly enough the rest of the day was spent shopping, in what is possibly the biggest shopping mall I have ever seen, called Canal Walk. I had my very first ‘braai’ that night! Ostrich didn’t taste at all what I expected. It actually tested a bit like liver.

On Monday we had the inauguration of Herschel’s (my school) new headmaster Mr. West. It was so long and with some of the songs that we had to sing, me and a couple of girls behind me had a bit  tone-deaf trouble with the high notes. Let’s just say that paracetamol didn’t really help the headaches.  Audrey, my host mom took me to Kirstenbosch, a beautiful botanical garden, for lunch. Then she and Don, my host dad, took Dani and I to Kalk Bay harbour to see the boats, sea and seals. They then took us out to fish n chips that night for dinner, in a restaurant where you can see the waves crashing a few metres from your window.

Tuesday was a lazy day, because we spent most of it going from shop to shop, trying on hipster clothes, smelling perfumes and swimming.

My hands are sore, your eyes are probably tired and you now know more than enough in order to stalk me and where I’ve been.

In my next post, I’ll tell you guys a bit about what school is like, the uniforms and the subjects that I take. Don’t we all love something to look forward to?

The Night Before...

Goodbye Holland and hello South Africa!!

What do people do before they leave their families for two months? Well, in my case it's stroking my cat to the point of irritation. Pack my suitcase. Freak out because the suitcase is 4kg overweight. Repack everything, still 1kg overweight. Give up, but proceed to jump around the house out of excitement because this time tomorrow I'll be in summer shorts!

Now, your probably wondering what a charming young lady like me is doing writing such a blog. If you haven't read the co-title, I have been picked to go on an exchange to Cape Town, and tomorrow is the day that I am finally going. I will be a student at Herschel girls school for the next 9 weeks and am going to follow subjects such as; consumer studies (aka cooking), drama, art, and why not try some squash while I'm there? I am going with three other friends of mine, another girl and two boys (don't worry, they're not going to the girls school...) and South Africa here we come!

This might sound really cheesy, but when I'm there I want to try EVERYTHING! My new motto is going to be YOLO. For those of you who don't know what it means, its; you only live once. A phrase which is increadably overused and annoying, but should still be considered as one of the best.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to get a good nights sleep ( I already know that's not going to happen) and mentally prepare myself for the screaming alarm tomorrow morning at 6.00.

Tessa

Ps. Rain, you will not be missed.